April 13, 2011

Is 15 years at the same company a plus or a minus in a job search?

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By Kristen Fife
NWjobs

Q: I work in the tech industry as a software engineer, and have been with the same company for over fifteen years. I have been considering looking for a new job, as I recently discovered that I am being paid about $15K less than what I should be based on market value. I have a beard and long hair and worry that these will make a negative impact, combined with so long at the same company. How can I address all these issues?
--JJ, Bellevue

Kristen says: I assume that ageism is one of the issues concerning you. Long hair and a beard are not necessarily disqualifiers for making a good impression in the tech industry. You need to evaluate whether your hair and beard age you significantly based on color (do you have a lot of gray?) and sparsity (thin on top?).

Being with the same company for a long time can be both positive and negative. If you have been consistently achieving higher levels of responsibility and taking on new projects that increase your expertise and offer you the chance to increase your skills, companies will appreciate the longevity. However, if you have been stagnating and not moving ahead in your career, you may be less attractive to potential employers. One thing you can do to increase your marketability in this regard is to pursue long-term consulting or temporary opportunities; most offer medical benefits in this area. This will give you exposure to new companies and projects, as well as the opportunity to “try before you buy.” Many companies in the Puget Sound hire consultants into full-time roles after successfully completing projects. Vocation Village has a great list of local tech employers, both for full-time and consulting opportunities.

In the tech field, your resume and LinkedIn profiles are going to be key to finding new opportunities; remember to use keywords such as your programming languages and technology focuses liberally. Make sure you are getting recommendations on your LinkedIn profile, and join groups like the Linked:Seattle and the Seattle Job Social to start networking and seeing who is hiring. Digital Eve is a free online community where many tech jobs are posted on a daily and weekly basis. The largest tech job board is definitely Dice, and the Washington State Technology Industry Association has a member directory you can peruse. NWjobs also just launched its new technology section with local tech job listings, a tech calendar and articles and blogs related to job searching and careers in the technology field.

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5 Comments

SAL9000 on April 17, 2011 3:41 PM | Reply

Uh, perhaps this guy isn't worth market value? Remember, pay is more or less a bell curve, or somewhat close to one, which explicitly says a portion of the market is making less than the prevailing salary.

Shaving and getting a hair cut won't hurt, but look to other key job performance criteria - technical skills, team work, work ethic, meeting deadlines, attitude, etc. That far more likely explains the apparently low salary. Jumping to ageism is reinforcing a victim mentality.

Kristen Fife replied to comment from SAL9000

Hi SAL9000,
Actually, although you are correct that base salary is based on a "bell curve", the longer a person is at one company the less competitive they are with their salary.

New employee compensation formulae are well ahead of regular "cost of living" or merit increases. Compensation benchmarking takes into account geographic and industry averages which is how most companies determine how much a new employee is paid which is different than what existing employees are making.

And whether we want to admit it or not, ageism is alive and well, and especially in the technology industry, it does make a difference.

denise on April 19, 2011 2:33 PM | Reply

testing

Nate on May 8, 2011 6:05 PM | Reply

If you want to make more money, change companies. Period. End of story.

long timer on July 13, 2011 10:38 AM | Reply

I'm also a long-timer myself, though only 10 years at my current company. I was also at my previous company for 10 years.

I can say, that depending on the individual, long-term usually can be a positive. Though that also depends on the company. For example, Boeing tends to keep all level of quality employees around for a while, so at a company like that, it could be a bad thing showing that you low self-esteem and you've become complacent and just want to do the minimum required for your job. However, other companies like Microsoft, Amazon, etc, won't tolerate that, so the longevity has more weight.

Also, regarding Kristen's suggestion:
"One thing you can do to increase your marketability in this regard is to pursue long-term consulting or temporary opportunities;"

I'm very involved in our company's hiring process and I would point out that you need to be very careful about doing contracting. There is nothing worse on a resume than a half-dozen or more short-term contracting jobs. Basically, that comes across as a glaring "companies don't want me" flag. This is because a lot of companies do either keep good contractors long-term or try to convert them to full-time positions. If you keep losing your contracts or temporary job, that tends to be a sign that the companies aren't impressed with your work.

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